I work for Red Hat, where I lead JBoss technical direction and research/development. Prior to this I was SOA Technical Development Manager and Director of Standards. I was Chief Architect and co-founder at Arjuna Technologies, an HP spin-off (where I was a Distinguished Engineer). I've been working in the area of reliable distributed systems since the mid-80's. My PhD was on fault-tolerant distributed systems, replication and transactions. I'm also a Professor at Newcastle University and Lyon.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Thunderbirds are go!

Over the year a number of people who were influential in my life have died. So it's with great sadness that I just heard that Gerry Andersen passed away today! Growing up in the later 60's and early 70's, programs such as Space 1999, Thunderbirds, Joe 90, Stingray and Captain Scarlet were the height of TV watching for kids. Each episode was an event, probably on the same scale as blockbuster films are today for kids. Having two children growing up over the past 2 decades, I can say that I've had to watch quite a lot of children's TV in the 90's and beyond, and yet none of them seem to have been as influential on my kids or their friends as Gerry Andersen's various efforts had on us.

Some kids watching them today may laugh at the special effects or the "wooden" acting, but I think that's due to the expectations that films like Lord of the Rings or Avatar have set. But relatively speaking, Gerry was the king of his era and those programs will live on in the memories of many people, myself included. It's truly a sad day. And I can't think of a more fitting way to say thank you and honour that memory than to watch my boxset of Stingray!